Upon Collision

Chapter Seven : I Hate You

*Wednesday after lunch*

“All students please make you way to your respective clubs. All students please make you way to your respective clubs!” The voice on the intercom boomed through the PA system all over the school.

“Welp…I’ll be heading to cheer practice to watch our captain make out with her dick of a boyfriend.” Stephanie said in a sigh, standing up and gathering her stuff. Frank just chuckled.

“I really think you should be elected as cheer captain. You LITERALLY do all the work.” Frank argued, making Stephanie shrug.

“I dunno guys…that’s how it works. And I think Hayley is out for me ever since Wilder tried to hit on me the other day.”

Gerard smiled a little bit, also standing and gathering his stuff. “Well it sounds like you really don’t wanna be late Steph.” She nodded in agreement.

“Oh, and you and Frank find a club!” She yelled while running down the hall, throwing her signature wave over her shoulder.
Gerard and Frank turned to face each other. “Shit right that.” Frank said getting up and throwing his bag over his shoulder.

“Well, what club are you in?” Gerard asked, which made Frank grin.
“Well there’s some kids who just skip out this period and smoke pot, I usually hang with them.” He shrugged while Gerard stopped.

“Wait pot as in, drugs? Like..cocaine?” He asked making Frank laugh.
“Dude I don’t know. I’m just kidding ya. They just smoke regular cigs ya know. We talk about stress n stuff. Then there’s the occasional alcohol. But wait, is cocaine pot? Isn’t pot just regular marijuana?”

Gerard gave a worried look. “How am I supposed to know, I’ve never smoked the stuff.”
“Yeah but you’re tracking down drug dealers. You’re supposed to know!” Frank yelled playfully, the words slapping him in his face as soon as they left his mouth.

“How do you know we’re working on catching drug dealers, Frank?” Gerard asked, more demanded, becoming very serious. Why did Frank know have that information.
“Dude chill, it’s all over news, there’s a ring of drug dealers somewhere West Jersey. And Ghost passed through and cleared it out, killed everybody. And it also said one guy managed to escape and was detained by some officers that were staking the scene. But they had to carry him to the hospital and he was pronounced dead on arrival.” Frank finished with a worried glance, and Gerard scrutinized him for some time before replying.

“Dude all that was on the news?” Gerard asked.
“You should pay attention to the happenings in your country Gerard. Oh let’s see what clubs they have.” Frank pointed at the notice board with the sheet of paper containing the list of clubs. They both stood for a few seconds in silence, scanning the sheet of paper. Not much looked appealing, only a chosen few.

“What about swimming?” Frank suggested, hiding a smile.
“Oh yeah, I’m sure you’d love that!” Gerard replied sarcastically, to which Frank giggled and shrugged.
“What’s wrong wildcat, you afraid of water?” He laughed, making Gerard huff.
“No way. What about Karate, free-sparing, let’s go spar.” Gerard suggested instead.
“No. Sir. I don’t free-spar.”

“I’ll teach you. C’mon Frank it’s not that bad.”
“I don’t fight.”
“Well I don’t swim.”
“No, you’re just a pussy, that’s what.”

Gerard sighed, an exasperated sigh and so did Frank. The just stared at each other tiredly, until the corner of Frank’s mouth made the slightest of twitches into a smirk, and a devious light filled his eyes.

“Let’s make a deal.”

……………

“Remind me of this deal again and why I’m entertaining it?” Gerard asked while taking his shirt off.

Frank laughed, pulling on a track pants over his boxers before throwing a white towel over a bare shoulder. “We free-spar for 3 rounds. If you win, I buy you coffee. But if I win…” Frank’s smile broadened, “if I win, you get laps in the pool, speedos and everything….and I get to watch.” Frank crossed his arms, leaning back on the lockers of the change-room with a triumphant look in his eyes.

“Why so cocky Phil?” Gerard asked. Frank looked so confident, which only made Gerard more nervous inside.
“I just really wanna see you in one of the schools speedo’s.” He said, shrugging and pushing off the lockers. “Let’s go slow poke.”

They both began to walk to the entrance of the gym. They had spoken to the coach to give them a sparing space and also to act as referee. He agreed to both.

“Why are you so confident you’re gonna see me in a speedo.” He held the door open for Frank and they walked into the gym together. Frank shrugged in response, bending over to rest down his stuff by the wall, while straining his neck to talk over his shoulder.
“Veto! I don’t wanna answer that.”
“We didn’t agree on a veto.”
Frank grinned at Gerard. “I know. Let’s go!”

He ran to the mat like a hyper kid and started bouncing up and down and swinging his arms to warm himself up.” What’s wrong Little-Red? You afraid of the big bad wolf?” Frank flexed his slim muscles a little making Gerard laugh.

“Oh my gosh. Dude if you knew how dumb you look right now, you wouldn’t be doing that!” Frank just kept jumping and did a little wiggle, while flexing his muscles in random positions, making Gerard laugh even more. Before he knew it, Gerard was falling to the floor laughing, which confused Frank because he was sure he didn’t look that stupid.

“Ahahaha!” Gerard kept laughing, until Frank stopped his little dance and turned around to see the coach staring at him with wide crazy eyes and an expression that could only be read as ,’what-the-actual-fuck-is-this-jackass-doing’.

Frank looked down, almost blushing. “Mr. Iero, it’s nice to see you so passionate about this.” Coach sighed. “Anyway, let’s get this over with.” Gerard noticed Frank was scrutinizing the muscular coach in a t-shirt and shorts, that walked with a little swagger in his step. Why? He had no idea, it was almost as if he was seeing the coach for the first time, or like if he knew him from somewhere other than school.

Coach lead them to the centre of a mat and had them face each other. “Right, so how do you guys plan to do this, karate style, judo, tai quan do? Wrestling, what?” Frank looked at Gerard to explain, kind of like a kid would do to their mom when the doctor asked what was wrong.

“Oh, we were just gonna free fight it out, ya know?” Coach looked at Gerard like if he was insane, but nodded.
“Okay, whatever that is. So, round one I guess. Fight!” Coach blew the whistle signifying their start.

Frank and Gerard began circling each other, each noticing every slight movement of the other, waiting for them to make the first move. “So you just gonna stay there and circle me Pansy?” Gerard taunted.
“I’m sorry to disappoint, but making the first move just isn’t my style.” Frank smirked at him, but looked very serious about it all the same.
“I’ll bare that in mind. It may not be your way…” Gerard leapt forward and grabbed one of Frank’s wrist, twisting his hand behind his back and holding it as high as it would go keeping Frank in a lock position, “..but it’s definitely mines.”

……………

“Round Three. Go!” Coach blew the whistle for round three, and once again, they circled each other, both out of breath.

The right side of Frank’s face was a bit red from where Gerard had managed to land an upper-cut, but it wasn’t too bad. Frank was quick on his feet, and able to dodge a lot of attacks and land a good bit as well. Gerard had won the first round but Frank won the second. They were both evenly matched.

Suddenly, Frank stopped moving and began jogging in the opposite direction. He ran to a wall that had a bunch of janitor’s brooms and mops and unscrewed the handle from two brooms, walking back and throwing one to Gerard.

“Let’s make your defeat a little fun huh?” Gerard smiled at Frank’s suggestion and twirled the stick a few times to get accustomed, before twirling it in and out of his fingers, over his head, behind his back and through his legs, throwing it into the air to catch hit with his other hands. He definitely knew he looked cool doing it.

“Hurry up man, you’re wasting your own time.” Frank whined, juggling his stick between both hands.
“Let’s do this Pansy! I really want my coffee.”
“About time!”
They ran to each other in a clash of sticks, fists and feet to decide their petty little fates of possibly the dumbest decision in their life.

……………

“I hate you.” Gerard mumbled, stepping up to the diver’s block, while Frank took a seat at the corner of the pool next to Stephanie.

“We heard that Gee! C’mon make the jump already!” Stephanie yelled and Frank giggled, holding up his cellphone to record the whole thing.

“Why did you bring Stephanie!? And you better not be lying when you say these are the only speedos!” The speedos weren’t tights like he was expecting, they were the tiniest of jokey-shorts looking stuff. And they were tight and showed up EVERYTHING. Gerard stood on top the diving block cupping his balls that were very evident.

“So you don’t want me here?” Stephanie pouted. Gerard shook his head quickly and Stephanie pouted even more then grinned. “Even better! Let’s go Red Head!”
“Yeah, move your sexy ass into that water…you’d be so f*cking wet. All the girls love wet men in panties!” Frank yelled.
“Yeah. Frank will love it too.” Stephanie whispered. But they were in the indoor pool so it more less echoed as it was just the three of them.

“Stephanie Mayer. I heard that!” Gerard yelled back while Frank just face palmed.
“C’mon Gerard. Like what, just jump! It’s the deep end anyway so you won’t hit you head or something! Jump!” Frank said.

A flash went off as Stephanie took her phone out and started taking pictures. “What? I like keeping shit like this, it’s fun for memories!” She shrugged.
“You know what?” Gerard asked Frank and Steph.
“What?” They replied in unison.

SPLASH!!!! Gerard cannon balled into the pool, splashing water all over them. When he surfaced he could hear them yelling at him and laughing, but he didn’t realize how far from the wall he was, and he wasn’t joking when he said he didn’t swim.

“Frank! Steph!!” He yelled, struggling to stay above water. “Help guys. This pool is really….d-deep!!! Help!” His head ducked under, and he could faintly hear Stephanie yelling at Frank in the
background.

His head popped back on top the water. “Hel-“ but it was cut off when he began to sink again, this time, not even knowing which way was up or down. He was so terrified! Were his friends going to think he was kidding and leave him there to drown? Oh God! The prospect of drowning terrified Gerard.
He always wanted to die in some kind of epic way, like a shoot-out and go down in a hail of bullets, not in his high school pool because of some stupid bet he and a friend had.
Gerard thrashed about one final time before he felt himself running out of air and strength. He gave up and allowed his body to sink further into the pool, or float to the surface. Either way, he wasn’t going to be using air anytime soon.

But he was proven wrong.

A pair of strong, skinny, but surprisingly muscular arms wrapped around his frame and began pulling him upwards towards the air above. As soon as his head broke the surface he gasped deeply, and mix of water and air filling his lungs making him cough uncontrollably. He pulled his hand down over his eyes and looked at Frank, who protectively held him around the waist and pulled him towards the wall.

“Oh my God Gerard are you okay?” Stephanie was waiting at the edge of the pool with a towel, and reached out a hand to try and pull him up, while Frank pushed him up from the pool, but Gerard’s arms were exhausted and he could barely even haul himself out of the pool, then he shook his head, still coughing.

“Wait…one sec.” They paused the pulling and pushing and allowed Gerard to catch his breath. Gerard took a deep breath and with Frank’s help, pulled himself out of the pool and dropped down on the floor, breathing heavily.

“C’mon buddy don’t stay here.” Frank said standing in front of Gerard. Frank had ditched every form of clothing, except his boxers and Gerard felt like he had no choice but to rake his eyes from Frank’s surprisingly muscular chest, right down his torso, over his hips all the way down to his feet and then back up to meet his eyes, getting kind of lost in them.

“You gonna sit there and check me out or get your shivering ass moving?” Frank asked, giggling, while he faintly heard Stephanie say ‘oh dear’ in the back ground. Frank’s hand was outstretched, so he took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. He felt Steph wrap a warm towel around his shoulders and give him a hug.

“Thank’s guys.” Gerard mumbled, his cheeks burning from embarrassment. They walked to the locker-changeroom, and Frank and Gerard got dried off.
“Dude I though you could swim?” Frank asked, while Stephanie climbed the lockers and perched herself ontop of them instead of a seat. She climbed it with impressive ease.
“Yeah, Gee. Why didn’t you say something?” She asked.

“I did tell you that I didn’t swim…” He tried to defend but Frank cut him off.
“Right. You said you DIDN’T not that you COULDN’T!”
“Yeah, but you guys still wouldn’t have believed me.”
Steph shrugged.

“True. But you just thrashed about in the water, you obviously weren’t hearing me yelling for you to calm down. You’d have floated right to the top, but you exhausted you muscles and began to sink.” She explained.

Frank pulled his jeans over his damp boxers. “Yeah, but Steph, when you can’t swim, you panic. By the time you go under, you tend to not know which way is up, down left or right. You lose all sense of direction. And the average human could one hold their breath for about 42 seconds before needing air. That paired with tired lungs and a high heart-rate…well you get where I’m going.”

Gerard stopped mid-way pulling on his t-shirt and gaped at Frank. “Did you go a life-saving course or something?”
“Actually yeah, I did, eventually. I’ve been placed in the situation before. I’m also a certified swimmer. Used to do it professionally, but there were some complications…” Frank’s voice trailed off and he had this faraway look on his face, so Gerard decided not to push it anymore.
They finished changing in silence until Stephanie broke it with a giggle.

“Oh by the way I’m still keeping these photos, because damn Gerard you looked hilarious.!”
“Wait! You guys didn’t film the whole drowning thing right?”
“Naahh. Frank stopped it right after you soaked us both.” Only then Gerard realized Steph was drying her hair with a towel as well. “It’s okay hun. That’s all a part of life. We all do stupid shit sometimes. Sorry about the bet and making you swim."

“Yeh Gee, sorry about that.” Frank apologized as well.
“It’s okay guys. Let’s just get home. What’s the time anyway?”
Steph checked her phone. “4:49 pm.”

“Yeah…we need to leave. Who wants coffee. On me?” Gerard said.
“Awesome. I’m in.” Stephanie chimed.
“Me too.” Frank pipped up.
“Cool. Let’s go.”

Notes

Kind of a filler chapter, hope you like it. Let me know what you think? Rate. Comment. Vote. Subscribe.
~xXSleepingBulletsXx